birthday chaos fun

Birthday...chaos...fun was the theme much of last week. Not much training happening, but I was back in my hometown out in Idaho with the fam, celebrating birthday's, celebrating family, and hanging out for a few days trying to take a little break from the ol' lab. My birthday was last week and we celebrated my mom's 60th birthday as we managed to get the WHOLE family together. That can be quite a feat as I live cross country and I have a sis overseas with her two kiddos (5months and almost 2 years old). Met the 5 month old for the first time on the trip (she's quite the cutie with an amazing smile). The two year old...he's great. Lots of fun when he's not cranky (but really...who is fun when they are cranky?). And got to see my other two nieces who live in my home town with my other sis. They are both roughly 3...five months apart...figure that one out ;-) (OK, OK one of them is adopted). The older one is quite the drama queen and wears a Dorthy outfit from the wizard of Oz...a gingham dress with the ruby red slippers. She will also emphatically tells people that her name is Ariel (She went through a Belle phase last year). Really, if you met her, you wouldn't question it. And the other niece is a real sweet kid.

It was a great weekend. My sisters and I had to go through all the heritage 'stuff' that my mom saved for us. The old books (we all fought over), certain pieces of clothing from child hood that well...are hard to part with...and the RANDOM stuff too that you just laugh at, take pictures of...and give it to Good Will!

We found this in the pile of stuff...and I can't seem to part with it. Seriously...it's just a cake box and a paint stick, you'd think I could get over it. But it was my first 'violin'. I learned with the Suzuki method and you first have to prove that you can hold the violin before you actually get to 'play' a real violin. I was pretty young (5 years old)...when I started. You can start kids as young as 3 with the Suzuki method. .

So...speaking of birthday's...I received my Kurt Kinetic trainer while I was gone and assembled it last night. It's in my room. It gives me the giggles that my BIKE is in the middle of my room. It also keeps me pretty accountable when it is STARING at me and begging me to come and ride it. Anyway, i tried out the trainer tonight and had a great time. 50mins...used part of the 30min Spinerval video that came with it and had fun.

Tomorrow the plan is weights and then swimming. I hope I don't sink.